ROH Survival of the Fittest 2011 Review

Ring of Honor's annual tradition comes to Dayton for the first time ever!

ROH Survival of the Fittest 2011

Dayton, Ohio 11/18/11

1.) Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match – Jay & Mark Briscoe vs. The Bravado Brothers: **1/4

The qualifiers are a little different this year as we have a mix of singles & mutli-man matches. This was one of those. Decent for the 6 Minutes it got.

After the match, Jay says one of the Briscoes will win tonight and to show off they head-butt each other a few times.

2.) Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match – Kyle O’Reilly vs. Andy “Right Leg” Ridge: **1/2

Ridge qualified by beating Grizzly Redwood at the Death Before Dishonor IX pre-show. A decent match. Lot of kicks...

3.) Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match – Eddie Edwards vs. “The Prodigy” Mike Bennett: ***1/4

I believe this is the first time these two have wrestled each other in ROH. Pretty solid stuff....one of Bennett's best matches of 2011

4.) Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match – Kenny King vs. Adam Cole vs. Michael Elgin vs. Tommaso Ciampa: ***1/4

I'm curious about the choice to put both Elgin & Ciampa in this match. Anyway, it was a pretty good Four-Corner Survival for the time it was given.

5.) Special Challenge Match – Steve Corino (with Jimmy Jacobs) vs. El Generico: ***

So this was the match that was supposed to take place at Death Before Dishonor IX. Essentially, El Generico keeps trying to put Corino down but he keeps coming back. The match ends in a time-limit draw.

Corino wants 5 more minutes but is talked out of it by Jacobs & Cornette. Corino & Generico shake hands after the match.

6.) Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match – Roderick Strong vs. Rhett Titus: **3/4

These two faced off in the qualifying round of the 2009 Survival of the Fittest. This time however, Strong is a heel and Titus is a face. A decently good match.

7.) Champions Challenge – ROH World Champion Davey Richards & ROH World TV Champion Jay Lethal vs. ROH World Tag Team Champions Shelton Benjamin & Charlie Haas: ***1/2

We see this kind of match a lot in WWE & TNA but not as much in ROH. It would be cool if this became sort-of an annual match. A pretty good match. WGTT gets the win, one of their better matches in recent months.

8.) 2011 Survival of the Fittest Finals – Jay Briscoe vs. Mark Briscoe vs. Kyle O’Reilly vs. Eddie Edwards vs. Michael Elgin vs. Roderick Strong: ****1/2

It's interesting as we got essentially two tag teams in this match. It turned out to be AWESOME!! The eliminations go like this: Jay, Mark, Strong, Edwards, O'Reilly. The last bit between Elgin & O'Reilly was some of the best action all year. Both guys looked like stars. Definitely one of the better Survival of the Fittest Finals in recent memory.

Overall: 8.25/10

While the star rating might suggest otherwise, all of the qualifying matches were relatively good, based on the time they were given. The non-tournament matches are all pretty solid and the finals are a must see, especially for the final two.